Football nº 10

[Horus Ex Machina]

BARCA!

Awesome final! I'm happy for Eto'o! Great to see the Man U machine run into a monster greater than themselves. How's that for comeuppance. The two best teams in the world and the best team won for sure. Long live the Champions!

[polishgenius]

We were so poor. I don't think the guy blaming the tactics has it right at all - we were set up to deny them space, we just didn't. The whole team was dire, pretty much, apart from VDS.

It wasn't a good game though, let's be honest.

[john]

Well, VDS did get beaten at his near post with their first shot of the night, but apart from that he was ok.

I was watching the losers greeting the dignitaries and getting their medals and wondered who the official on the very end of the row was, the guy getting very perfunctory handshakes from unkeen United players. Then he jogged down the stairs after Ronaldo to lead the Barca team up and I realised it was Laporta, the Barca club president. He really puts himself about. :lol:

[Horza]

We were so poor. I don't think the guy blaming the tactics has it right at all - we were set up to deny them space, we just didn't. The whole team was dire, pretty much, apart from VDS.

Agree, shocking performances from Anderson, Carrick, Vidic, Ronaldo and Berbatov.

It wasn't a good game though, let's be honest.

No. It was a good game, not a scrappy affair and well-reffed - it was just a little dull because only one team turned up.

[The hairy bear]

I've got no voice left after shoouting that much. BAAAAARRÇA!!!!! :bow: :drool: :drunk: No, not there's no smiley that can summarize my euphoria right now.

Força Barça!

A very good match, btw. And we have to admit that before the first goal, Manchester was getting the best of us...

[Alcibiades]

BARCALONA!!! Ok. I went into this game intending to watch as a neutral. I know a lot of Chelsea fans were supporting United, after the injustice at Stamford Bridge. However, by the end I found myself shouting for Barcelona. I seriously enjoyed watching United get played off the pitch. I was watching at a pub that had the Boston Manchester United supporters club. There was a huge mob of them there singing merrily. But they sure shut up once Eto'o's goal went in! And the dozen or so Barcalona supporters there made a lot more noise than their small numbers would indicate. Great times!!!!

[Horus Ex Machina]

It's weird though bc I'm a Chelsea fan but I'm also a Barca fan, so I kind of had little problem shouting for them in this game. I think I hurt myself jumping up and down after Eto's goal.

[Mathis]

How does Ferguson compare to Paisley now? Stupid tactics from United to give Iniesta and Xavi that much space, that'll teach the Manc fuckers.

Fletcher was banned and Hargreaves is injured. Ferguson chose the best midfield available to him. The problem is that Anderson is not experienced enough and Giggs doesn't have the legs anymore. Hardly a tactical disaster though. What was Ferguson supposed to do, put O'Shea there? :rolleyes:

Before the game I thought Ferguson's tactical mistake was not puting Ronaldo on the right to attack Silvinho, but as it turned out whenever Ronaldo did have a go, Silvinho did ok.

Putting Ronaldo on the left against Puyol backfired - Puyol was just too smart for him, and he took Ronaldo out of the game.

You know that Ronaldo only went onto the left after Park got taken off right? He spent most of the match playing through the middle.

Anyway, the best team won and they certainly deserve it, dodgy semi-final aside. They've played the best football in the world and have never compromised their style of play. Congratulations to them.

[Horza]

It's a testament to Barca's domination of the midfield that you would hardly have known they were playing with only one of their first-choice backline.

[DJDonegal]

FUCK YOU, RONALDO. YOU DIRTY, CHEATING, WORTHLESS LITTLE PIECE OF SHIT. YOU HAD NOTHING, YOUR DIRTY MANC SCUM TEAM HAD NOTHING. THOROUGHLY OUTPLAYED, OUTCLASSED, OUTWILLED, OUTWITTED, COMPLETELY DESTROYED. SWEET, SWEET CONSOLATION.

This is some funny shit.

Anyway, I didn't watch the game. I was going to get up at 4.30am for it, but then some douche set his alarm for 3.15am and I didn't get back to sleep for ages. So I didn't want to go watch the game and then go to work on 3 hours sleep for a game where I support neither team - even if it was the CL Final.

But I did have a dream that Barcelona won 4-3, scoring 2 goals in the final 5 minutes and that I had missed out on one of the greatest finals of all time. But I'm glad that didn't actually happen.

[ljkeane]

Fletcher was banned and Hargreaves is injured. Ferguson chose the best midfield available to him. The problem is that Anderson is not experienced enough and Giggs doesn't have the legs anymore. Hardly a tactical disaster though. What was Ferguson supposed to do, put O'Shea there? :rolleyes:

I thought they were far too open in midfield regardless of the players available. All the English teams that Barca have played in recent years including United last year have caused tham a lot of problems by not allowing them any space to play in midfield and hitting them on the break. Although United did play badly I don't know why they went away from the tactics that worked for them last year and should have worked for Chelsea in the semi final :dunno:

[Paddy]

FUCK YOU, RONALDO. YOU DIRTY, CHEATING, WORTHLESS LITTLE PIECE OF SHIT. YOU HAD NOTHING, YOUR DIRTY MANC SCUM TEAM HAD NOTHING. THOROUGHLY OUTPLAYED, OUTCLASSED, OUTWILLED, OUTWITTED, COMPLETELY DESTROYED. SWEET, SWEET CONSOLATION.

Wow :stunned:

Just wow.

Erzulie, you really need to get over this obsession you have with Ronaldo. I mean, I thought it odd when you told Ronaldo to go fuck himself simply because Juninho was leaving Lyon and he was a damn good free-taker. I mean, wtf? Is Ronaldo the only regular free-taker in your world? Should I tell Aurelio or Gerrard to go fuck themselves because they aren't as good as Juninho?

I don't think so.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised. You are far from the only example of a Liverpool fan being an unbelievably poor loser that I've seen this past week.

Not that that applies to all Liverpool fans. I've talked to plenty who've been gracious. It's just a pity that the manager and the most vocal fans are those that are so lacking in class.

Anyway, onto tonight.

Let me start by saying that barca were great. They were best team on the night. They were the best team in Europe this season and they deserved the win.

So many of our players were poor. Whether that was because they just had a bad game or because Barca's quality forced them to be off, or because Ferguson got his tactics wrong we'll never know.

Personally, I tend towards the latter two. I can believe that were Fletcher playing that Iniesta would never get past the midfield to play in Eto'o for goal #1 and Maxi never gets the space to pull off that (amazing) cross for goal #2.

The first ten minutes were a dream and had we managed to stave off Barcelona's one attack, I can easily imagine that Barca's head's would not have been raised in time (they certainly were lowered for those 10 minutes) until we got the goal and then the game was there for us for the taking.

But all of these are just the wistful thoughts of what-might-have-been from a losing fan. I've always been a believer that in order to be champions, you have to beat what's in front of you in the circumstances you are presented with.

We were presented with being a goal down and we couldn't score.

It took me 30minutes after the final whistle to stop feeling down and appreciate how good Barca had been. There was a fantastic camera angle I saw of goal #2. It was from a very long way away and in slow motion. Messi seems to stop perfectly upright in mid-air for a few moments, and shifts his head forward to meet the ball and then back to guide it home.

I hope everyone gets to see it, it was awesome.

For United, I thought only Ronaldo and Evra had reasonably good games (which makes Erzulie's outburst all the more headscratching). Rooney's now had 2 poor CL finals (in a row, too) and Tevez, Berbatov and Scholes had too little of the ball for a proper opinion.

Comparitively, I was trying to thing of Barcelona players who made mistakes. And all I could think of were Toure and Puyol. Toure got lucky and had a good performance from Pique to cover it and Puyol improved as the game went on and had some brilliant moments which made up for his few slips, imo.

There's all the difference you need.

It's interesting to see the differences of opinion as to the quality of the game. I was one of those who thought it wasn't great, just meh. The ones who thought it was here seem to be actually saying that they were glad it wasn't shit, which isn't the same thing, IMO.

I wont go into why this is interesting to me now, because it'll just seem like I'm being sore about it. Trust me, I'm not. Maybe I'll bring it up some time.

I'll end by restating my main point.

Congratulations Barcelona. Best attacking force in European Soccer. Best Football Team in Europe.

Champions of Europe.

[Horza]

Fair-minded words well said, Paddy.

[ljkeane]

Wow :stunned:

I guess I shouldn't be surprised. You are far from the only example of a Liverpool fan being an unbelievably poor loser that I've seen this past week.

Are you surprised that Liverpool fans don't like United? and it's not like the reverse isn't true.

Plus United and Ronaldo in particular are scum ;)

[Paddy]

It's a testament to Barca's domination of the midfield that you would hardly have known they were playing with only one of their first-choice backline.

Arguably this worked in Barca's favour as they has a back four who actually defended more than their first choice back four this season.

Alves goes forward a lot, but was poor at crossing in both legs of the semi-final and his tenacity didn't make up for a lack of quality in tackling and positioning, imo.

Abidal, I have total sympathy for. The guy did not deserve to be sent off against Chelsea, but again, it's arguable that his replacement, Sylvinho was more effective against Utd, being more likely to cover his centre-backs.

From what I've seen in the CL this year and heard from analysts (always an unreliable source), Marquez is a poor defender.

Having said that, I didn't rate Pique as near top class, yet he's had a fine time defending in Europe (one unspotted hand-ball aside).

Mormont,

I think that Ronaldo only had the chance to take on Puyol a very small number of times and it's acceptible to me that he didn't make a huge amount of progress. The other times he was up against him, he was done by balls which were constantly too long from his midfield and defense, so I can't blame him for that.

[Paddy]

Are you surprised that Liverpool fans don't like United? and it's not like the reverse isn't true.

I am not surprised that fans don't like one another.

Where I grew up you were either a United fan or a Liverpool fan, and those "tribes" ribbed the hell out of each other every single day.

That doesn't stop me from being unimpressed by a lack of class when I see it.

I can't recall myself saying anything as childish as what Erzulie wrote when Arsenal went undefeated in 2003-2004 or when Chelsea under Mourinho rewrote the record books in 2004-2005 and 2005-2006 (United's 14-clean sheets in a row record makes me all the more proud because of how impressed I was by Chelsea's record from that time). I can't recall any Chelsea or Arsenal fans in 2006-2007 or 2007-2008 being such sore losers in this forum.

So I feel ok with calling it out when I see it. It's not like I'm the only one who's done so.

It's funny too, when he just the other day brought to our attention the unbelievable lack of class by Milan's Ultras to one of their greatest players (FTR, that was way worse than what I'm complaining about in Liverpool fans)

ETA: just to be clear again, I'm not complaining about all Liverpool fans or even the majority. Just those vocal few. And yes, Arsenal and Chelsea and United have their share of classless arsehole fans too.

Plus United and Ronaldo in particular are scum ;)

Thanks for that, Dave. :rolleyes:

[ljkeane]

That doesn't stop me from being unimpressed by a lack of class when I see it.

I can't recall myself saying anything as childish as what Erzulie wrote when Arsenal went undefeated in 2003-2004 or when Chelsea under Mourinho rewrote the record books in 2004-2005 and 2005-2006 (United's 14-clean sheets in a row record makes me all the more proud because of how impressed I was by Chelsea's record from that time). I can't recall any Chelsea or Arsenal fans in 2006-2007 or 2007-2008 being such sore losers in this forum.

The rivalry between the fans isn't anywere near as big with the fans of those clubs, United fans take the piss when Liverpool lose and the reverse is also true. Seriously what do you expect?, of course all Liverpool fans were going to be supporting Barca and enjoy the fact that United lost.

[Horza]

Mormont,

I think that Ronaldo only had the chance to take on Puyol a very small number of times and it's acceptible to me that he didn't make a huge amount of progress. The other times he was up against him, he was done by balls which were constantly too long from his midfield and defense, so I can't blame him for that.

Thing is, after he switched to the left I noticed a rapid uptick in :rolleyes: :dunno: :tantrum: -s culminating in his yellow card for shoulder-barging. There wasn't a lot for Puyol to do, but he definately got under Ronaldo's skin, limiting his effectiveness even further.

[Alcibiades]

The rivalry between the fans isn't anywere near as big with the fans of those clubs, United fans take the piss when Liverpool lose and the reverse is also true. Seriously what do you expect?, of course all Liverpool fans were going to be supporting Barca and enjoy the fact that United lost.

Poor sporting behavior being commonplace or unremarkable doesn't make it any less contemptible. Paddy is completely correct to call it what it is.

[ljkeane]

Poor sporting behavior being commonplace or unremarkable doesn't make it any less contemptible. Paddy is completely correct to call it what it is.

The banter and the rivalry between the fans is what makes close rivalries fun. I expect United fans to enjoy Liverpool losing and to give me shit about it and they expect the reverse, the vast majority of United and Liverpool fans I know aren't offended by it.